Léonard Victor Joseph Charner was an Admiral of the French Navy. As a commander of French naval forces in Asia from May 1860 to September 1861, including the Second Opium War and the Cochinchina campaign, he was a significant participant in the establishment of French Indochina.

The Cochinchina campaign was a series of military operations between 1858 and 1862, launched by a joint naval expedition force on behalf of the French Empire and the Kingdom of Spain against the Nguyễn period Vietnamese state. It was the opening conflict of the French conquest of Vietnam.